Ken Kutaragi – the man the world owes PlayStation to – spoke in a debate on virtual reality and the metaverse. In his opinion, projects based on this niche do not make sense.
Contrary to PlayStation’s official position, which is enthusiastic about VR, Kutaragi questions the point of using VR headsets, known as headset headsets. He describes them as annoying because they completely isolate humans from real life – on a scale never seen.
The very idea of creating a virtual universe based on mechanisms familiar from social media seems absurd to him.
The future of the metaverse
The metaverse is being talked about more and more among cryptocurrency market participants. Especially after a surprising move by Facebook, which changed its name to Meta. The new name clearly suggests the company’s development plans. Zuckerberg has repeatedly mentioned his intention to create a VR universe in which each user would be represented by his avatar.
The founder of the largest social media in the world is seriously thinking about hiring 10 thousand European computer scientists to work intensively on this project. In the metaverse, people would be able to work together, relax, chat, changing locations and scenery as they please – just like in a computer game.
Kutaragi is full of reservations about VR
Virtual reality doesn’t arouse enthusiasm in everyone. Among the sceptics who doubt the sense of creating such worlds is Ken Kutaragi. In a recent interview with Bloomberg, the creator of PlayStation said that the metaverse is not at all the next milestone in the development of technology and in the long run will not be adopted.
In his opinion, VR can contribute to antagonizing large groups of people. He also said that being in the real world is very important, so creating an additional quasi-reality within the virtual world doesn’t make sense. He compared the metaverse to messageboard sites that allow people to communicate anonymously with other people.
Metaverse and cryptocurrencies
The world’s largest asset management firm takes a diametrically opposed position: Grayscale. According to them, in just a few years the VR niche will be worth over 1 trillion dollars. Representatives of the concern see a huge potential of the metaverse, which is not limited only to the market of computer games.
According to Haim Israel, a strategist working for Bank of America, spreading of virtual worlds network would support development of decentralized payment systems like Bitcoin or Ethereum. In virtual reality, people would start using cryptocurrencies on a massive scale. For now, however, the price value of digital assets is changing too rapidly for them to replace traditional means of payment.